


Moments Of Being

by spacemonkey



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Crossdressing, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-11
Updated: 2014-12-11
Packaged: 2018-03-01 01:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2754458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacemonkey/pseuds/spacemonkey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before Dad and Dean left, Sam snapped a photo of his brother. When Dean came home a bloody mess, Dad half carrying him into the room, Sam placed the photo in the pages of his battered copy of The Shining. He considered throwing it away, but they weren't really a family of photos, and Sam supposed this was one to cherish.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Moments Of Being

**Author's Note:**

> This was started in 2007, finished in early 2009. It was meant to be a light fluffy fic about Dean wearing a dress when it was started, but it turned into something painful quickly. There's a hint of Dean/Sam, if you squint.

Sam thought that perhaps Dean had the lips, the eyes, and hell, Elle Macpherson was a six footer so it could almost work.   
  
But he'd noticed, tried not to but they were right there, that Dean's shoulders were doing their thing, and you'd be hard pressed to find a girl so broad.   
  
He didn't even bother to bring up the voice. Deeper than it was a couple of years ago, maybe even a few months back, and this whole plan was just. not. right.  
  
Dean seemed to agree, but his hesitation probably had something to do with him being nineteen and crossdressing. Didn't really scream manly, and if this plan didn't go to hell (or even if it did) Sam knew he had enough fodder to last him at least till the next stupid thing Dean did.  
  
The next stupid thing Dad made Dean do. Because it was Dad's stupid idea and his money paying for the supplies. Foundation and mascara and . . . fishnet stockings?  
  
"I'm not shaving my legs."  
  
It was the first real denial Dean had put out there since John had looked at him a bit too close and decided he could work. Sam couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother pout so much, and it wasn't really helping his manliness, but Dean had been an almost willing participant. Whatever it took to bring this sucker down, it was the family motto. One of them, anyway.  
  
Make up and whoring himself out Dean could deal with, but apparently shaving his legs was where he drew the line. Sam would have drawn it before the idea had even been put on the table, but Dean was . . .  
  
Dean was Dean.  
  
And Dad was Dad. Saying, "Dean, it has to be believable."  
  
"Pants can be believable."  
  
"Or even normal stockings," Sam backed up his brother, even though he knew he should have been demanding no. But when was the last time his demands had worked on his father. Dean, always. Dad, probably somewhere around '95, and no way did Sam want to remember what had changed it all.  
  
Dad ended up going out to buy some normal stockings. Sam wondered if it had been him or Dean who had convinced him. Decided it didn't really matter in the long run because they were still going through with this.  
  
"That's because I'm a man now, Sammy," Dean had said later, somewhat patronising, when Sam had brought up the whole broad shoulders issue. The fact that he'd been applying mascara at the time was tucked away into Sam's fodder file. That he knew how to apply it at all, and so well after the smooth foundation job, left Sam both baffled and hysterical. He just wasn't sure if that was the laughing kind or the kind which required having a drink thrown in his face.  
  
"It's gonna give you away, Dean."  
  
"Sam, you need to get out more. I've seen my fair share of women, and let me tell you-"  
  
Sam didn't hear the rest, knew he really didn't have to. Dean knew women, women weren't all size 2, and real were better than fake. And he thought Dad loved speeches, Dean could take him on any day of the week. If it concerned women. Or cars. Or music. But not that chick stuff. Actual music.  
  
But Sam didn't have to hear the rest, because Dean had moved on to the blush, adept like the rest. A distraction if Sam had ever seen one - since when did Dean have cheekbones - and when the surprisingly real looking wig was added, he thought that maybe, just maybe, the plan might work.   
  
Didn't tell Dean this though, that would go against everything he'd been complaining about for the last day and a half, he just watched his brother, silently, in the mirror.   
  
"It doesn't have to be perfect, Sammy," Dean was saying as Sam drifted back in, "I mean, it went after Stacey DeLonge and she wasn't exactly Nicole Kidman, you know? I just gotta be seen from a distance."  
  
Sam guessed he could have argued it; if it didn't have to be perfect, why couldn't Dad . . .  
  
The beard probably would have been a dead giveaway. No way would Dean let Sam do it. And waiting for the thing to attack another girl was out of the question. They'd covered that in less than ten seconds, and Sam wasn't even giving it another thought. Dean spoke of Stacey in soft words, thought of her to be better than Nicole Kidman, and they'd only met once.  
  
Apparently, Dean was stuck being all woman. And possibly getting his throat slit in the process. The plan might just have been worse than Jersey in '95, and even Dean held resentment over that one.  
  
Sam watched his brother in the mirror, saw green eyes lock with his own, and that was enough for him to leave the room, amused and concern shared into a muttered, "Don't forget your boobs."  
  
Before Dad and Dean left, Sam snapped a photo of his brother, hating the plan but loving the thought of his fodder file having photographic evidence. Dean was surprisingly fast in heels, Sam found seconds later as he ran from his brother, and after Dad had broken them apart and told Dean to get in the car, he'd ordered Sam to get rid of the photo.  
  
To hell with that, Sam thought, and tucked it in his sock drawer for a later date.  
  
When Dean came home a bloody mess, Dad half carrying him into the room, Sam placed the photo in the pages of his battered copy of _The Shining_. He considered throwing it away, but they weren't really a family of photos, and Sam supposed this was one to cherish.  
  
******  
  
Jess liked to ask about his family, even when Sam made it clear he wasn't going to spill. If anything, it spurred her on all the more. Sam understood, he did, but there was no way, it was a different life, one that she just wouldn't understand. Sam couldn't explain Dad without mentioning hunting, they went hand in hand, and he just couldn't explain Dean.   
  
They were unpacking boxes, Sam hands deep in clothes, and Jess rifling through books when she found  _The Shining_. She smiled, said something about having to keep the book in the freezer, and then added "like Joey on Friends" when she spotted Sam's confusion.  
  
He smiled, nodded like he'd actually seen an episode of the show, and watched as Jess flipped through the book. He'd almost forgotten about the photo, at the very least had forgotten which book it was in, and was nearly as surprised as Jess when she found it.  
  
"That's Dean," he said while Jess stared at the photo, and swallowed before adding, "My brother."   
  
Sam supposed that was the easiest way to explain Dean, even though it didn't explain him at all. He could have lied, he supposed. He just didn't.  
  
Jess studied the photo for a long time, too long, and Sam waited for the questions. Wasn't every day you found a photo like that, and she had wanted answers so bad.  
  
"It was just a thing . . ." Sam shrugged, as if that could answer a year of nothing. "Taken a long time ago."  
  
Jess nodded as he took the photo from her, back into the book. "He's very pretty," she finally said, and Sam could spot the fakeness in her teasing smile and the way she pointedly ignored the spots of blood on the picture.  
  
She didn't ask about his family, at least not for a while, and Sam wasn't sure if that was a blessing.  
  
******  
  
Sam still wasn't sure how he'd gotten the picture to be so perfect. A second later and the image would have been a blur, but there was Dean, eyes almost looking at the camera but not quite. Bambi eyes, a girl had said once and Sam had laughed while Dean had sulked because apparently competing with a deer wasn't his brothers’ idea of a good time.   
  
He'd caught his brother kissing a girl one night, after a few drinks at a bar that hadn't bothered to card him. In the alley next to the building, up against the wall, Dean's hand hidden in her shirt. Sam thought then that it had been almost a cliché, now he was remembering the way she'd kissed him; lower lip caught between her teeth, and he'd growled.  
  
Dean's lower lip was there for all to see, painted red and slightly apart from the top one. Sam couldn't help but remember the alley when he saw Dean's lower lip, and the growl always followed in his mind.  
  
Blond hair though, Sam didn't know what they'd been thinking - what he'd been thinking, he'd picked the colour. Sure, it had matched Dean's hair at the time, but a darker colour would have been better. More convincing. Maybe if he’d picked a darker wig, Dean wouldn't have come back bloody.  
  
Maybe black.  
  
******  
  
Sam thought that maybe it’d been a long time since he’d looked at the picture. A month, two? And surprise, surprise, he hadn’t slept for a month, two. Not well, not like he used to.  
  
Jess asked sometimes, apparently over her hiatus of questions, about him. Not why he wasn’t there, now or ever. Didn’t ask what he did for a living, if he had 2.5 kids and lived beyond a white picket fence. She asked about  _him_. Deep shit that Sam can’t answer, and easy things that Sam finds even more impossible.  
  
The questions were about their childhood, and Jess had taken a few psychology classes so it didn’t surprise Sam. She made it a habit of analysing.  
  
He changed the subject, and she’d gone quiet, calculating. Sam knew he picked a smart one, just as sure as he knew she wouldn’t let it go.  
  
She slept soundly next to him, while he lay awake  _again_ , and could almost feel Dean’s warm feet kicking his legs away. Hear his voice complaining about Sam’s cold toes, and ‘Dude, seriously you need to cut your toenails, I just caught Hep B from them’, and piling most of the blankets on top of Sam all the while. Because that’s just Dean, and Sam slept through the night back then, easy as all get out.  
  
Jess hogged the blankets sometimes.  
  
******  
  
Sam was twelve the first time he aimed to kill, and his father had all but dared him to pull the trigger.  
  
******  
  
Sam took care of Mrs. Gerber’s garden, among other things, to pay the bills.  
  
She was blonde with a surfer’s body and clear blue eyes, only a few years older than Sam and that fact caused most conversations to start and end with, “Please, call me Melissa.”  
  
She was the wife of a professor in his fifties, and something told Sam she’d married for status, not love. Mr. Gerber had published a number of books, appeared on  _Oprah_  and wore Armani; he also taught Sam, so Mrs. Gerber remained just that, no matter how much she tried.  
  
Jess found it all so hilarious, begged Sam over and over to tell her the parts where Mrs. Gerber checked the mail in her bikini, brought Sam iced tea in a skimpy dress, urged Sam to take off his shirt if he was hot.  
  
Sam thought Dean would have loved Mrs. Gerber. He’d said that offhandedly to Jess one day, and they’d both gone quiet.  
  
******  
  
Dad sat him down when Sam was sixteen, all sweaty palmed and tight smiles.   
  
From his father’s nervous demeanour, Sam’d been sure he was about to get the talk. He wasn’t sure how he could tell his dad that he’d already heard it all. That Dean had gotten there four years earlier, all confidence and knowing grins: “What you’re doing in the shower is perfectly normal, little brother. Yeah, I hear you, you’re not exactly the quiet type. But everyone does it, Sammy.  _Everyone_. I mean, why do you think I have so many showers? Hygiene ain’t that important!”  
  
Sam thankfully didn’t get that awkward conversation, his dad instead launching into stories of Mom. Quiet tones, explaining the colour of her eyes and the way she would make spaghetti with that extra hint of garlic that made it so special, even if they had to tolerate garlic breath for the next eight hours or so. “Not even extra strength mouth wash could kill that bastard,” Dad said, “Maybe we should have tried some holy water.”  
  
He trailed off, turned to serious mode and his hands only got sweatier. “Think it’s about time you know, you’ve been asking for so long.” And Dad explained to Sam about  _that_  night, Mom on the ceiling with her belly slashed.  
  
Sam listened intently, even though he  _hadn’t_  asked about her for years, thanked his father after, and didn’t know how to tell him Dean had once again gotten there first. Quiet night in Jersey, four years earlier, Dean had sugar-coated it just a bit, but he  _had_  told it. Because Sam had asked.  
  
Off and on for the next two weeks, it had been Dean up on that ceiling – shocked and pale and a hint of blue around his lips - blood dripping down onto the sheets, onto Sam, before everything turned to fire and Sam woke up screaming.  
  
But that was ’95 for you.  
  
******  
  
Sam came home; neck sunburnt after a day of attempted seduction, and found the photo – the photo – framed on the mantle.  
  
“What did Mrs. Gerber do today?” Jess said, feigning innocence. Sam’s mouth was ready on autopilot, ready to tell Jess about today’s short – shorts fiasco, but he just couldn’t let this one go.  
  
“Why is that up there?”  
  
“Oh.” Jess shrugged. “My family pictures wanted to meet at least one of your family pictures. They’re pretty traditional that way.”  
  
“I have other pictures, Jess.”  
  
“Of your mom and dad. The only picture you have of your brother is that one. And I don’t even know the story behind it.” A beat. “I mean, was it a dare?”  
  
“No.”  
  
Jess waited. Let out a stream of breath through her teeth. “How old was he?”  
  
“Nineteen. Are we done?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just grabbed the photo and left, because he knew the answer would be “no”.  
  
******  
  
Sometimes Sam couldn’t figure out his brother, didn’t know whether to joke or enter serious time. He was pretty sure a ‘Hey, how bout those Knicks?’ comment wouldn’t be appreciated. Dean was more a baseball fan, and that was something Sam  _could_  figure out about him.  
  
Dean was silent when he was usually making noise, whooping because they’d finished a hunt, good job all round, but he sat stock still in the front seat, and Dad was the same. They were both pretty banged up though.  
  
Sam clutched at the knife in his hand, bloodied because he’d misjudged the aim of the gun, and he felt his stomach roll. “Can we pull over?” he muttered, and when no one answered, he all but screamed it.  
  
******  
  
 _A blind man walks into a bar_ , Sam couldn’t help but think as he and Jess waited for their coffee. Across the road, a man in dark glasses walked into the bar with the gait of a guy who never should have left. Sam’s watch read 10:42AM.   
  
Hadn’t been the first time he’d seen someone drinkin’ at that time of the morning, usually in dad’s case though he was just continuing from the night before. More so after Jersey. Even more so after Dean had donned a wig when he was nineteen. He’d been close to blind walking out the bar those times, and Sam wasn’t sure how that joke ended.  
  
“Dad used to sing Lennon after a few,” his mouth said, even while his brain was stuck on searching for the punch line. Jess let her eyebrow quirk slightly, the corner of her mouth following suit, but she stayed silent. Sam figured for that, and nearly three years of silence, she’d earned more. Something that was true, and this was. Sometimes his dad would sing. Others, he’d stay silent. Sometimes, he’d get loud.  
  
“Four verses of  _(Just Like) Starting Over_  had always been more than enough, you know, but there’d always been at least five more verses to come. Even a drunk dad was efficient.” Sam paused, smiled. “And tone deaf. God, he was so tone deaf.”  
  
Jess laughed then, understanding filtering through. “I think it’s an unwritten law that all dads can’t sing to save themselves. The real kicker is when they try to at church. Loudly. It’s a wonder my dad never got smited.”  
  
Sam laughed, awkward. Dad had never sang hymns.  
  
******  
  
Sam went every year, even if Dad just couldn’t bear to, because it was Dean. Every year, he stood and stared and maybe let a tear or two trickle, before kneeling down and reaching out.  
  
Jess followed him that year, dressed to the nines and looking more sullen then Sam had ever seen her. He thought she looked more beautiful than ever as well; she’d dressed up for Dean.  
  
“He was nineteen,” Jess stated as Sam traced his brother’s name with his finger. He nodded, even though it hadn’t been a question – the real question was hanging in the air, had been for three years now – ‘Why is there blood stains on the photo?” – and maybe she’d deserved the answer.  
  
“He still had some lipstick on when we took him to the hospital. It was smudged though,” Sam laughed mirthlessly. “Probably still got the mascara on.”  
  
They’d left, later, after Sam had stood and stared and Jess had hovered and kept her distance, and gone to Starbucks. Of all places.  
  
“Dean’s favourite movie growing up was  _The Shining_. He had a serious thing for Jack Nicholson, I mean a serious thing.” Sam smiled into his latte. “I picked up the book from a second-hand store for his birthday. He might have flipped through a quarter of the book before giving up and just watching the damn movie again. He loved  _redrum_  though, used to write it in his school books.”  
  
He told her about summers with Pastor Jim. Moving from school to school because of their dad’s work. Dean putting on the make up, _knowing_  how to put on the make up, and how strange that was. He didn’t tell her why Dean had been dressed like that. How he remembered the whole thing wrong, because Sam knew he would have been laughing his ass off over the whole thing, not so goddamn serious. And maybe Dean had been complaining more. But Sam liked his version best, because he wasn’t laughing.  
  
Sam left out the part where he sometimes talked to Dean, heard him say, “You’re older than me now.”  
  
He didn’t tell her how he’d reply, “And taller,” and Dean would smirk before muttering, “I’d still kick your ass.”  
  
The kicker was always Sam’s conclusion, “You’d let me win.” Dean’s response was a knowing smile and that was that, because even seven years of pretend conversations couldn’t change Dean being the better brother.  
  
Sam never told her, and Jess never asked – not even about the photo anymore. She let loose a few simple questions about Dean, but even they simmered and Sam thought maybe he missed them.  
  
The photo went up in flames with his girlfriend, not two weeks later.


End file.
